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Wedding Rings

“I’m not sure how I feel about gay weddings”, a friend told me yesterday. He and his male partner have been together for forty years. My friend is now retired, and his partner is not far off it, and they come from a generation where expectations about marriage for same sex couples were not on the radar. Hey, back in “their day” male gay sex could get you some time in gaol, and was mostly never talked about. Times have changed, but many people remember the past. He told me this late yesterday, after telling him I’d been to my first LEGAL gay wedding held at a nearby registry office.

We all laughed when my friends (one in his sixties, one in his forties) had to declare they were over 18 years old, as they’ve been together for close to 18 years, and they’re no spring chickens. They also had to declare they weren’t related, which also gave us a smile, as one of them is Anglo-Australian, and the other was born in Thailand.

They were able to choose their titles – they went with groom and groom – but the only thing they changed straightaway, was from ring fingers on their left hands to ring fingers on their right hands, as they were the ones that fitted!!

It was short and sweet in lots of ways, held in the registry office.

The older friend I mentioned earlier told me he was also going to a wedding this weekend of a couple who had been together for a long time. “They’re doing the whole she-bang”, he told me. An interesting contrast, I thought to myself, between couples who had been together for a long time, with one couple choosing something short, sweet, and mostly about legalities, whereas the other was about a big public celebration. I make no judgements either way, just noting that in this day and age, there are lots of ways to get married, that don’t necessarily involve white dresses and churches.

Lovely.

Wedding Rings

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You are talking about us? Partner retired. Me about to retire. Been together almost forty years. While my partner does not agree with me, it was such a big disappointment to me when Oldest Niece, who has been with her partner for a decade and they have two children, decided she wanted to get married. At the engagement party, it was noted that it won’t be happening any time soon. While I love that gay people now have the right to get married in Australia and around the world, but really, what is the point of anyone getting married, straight or gay.

Hi James Came across this in the Moruya Historical Society site, talking about early shipping in the area. Shows that Allan continued his boatbuilding trade after settling in Moruya. Also good coverage of his son-in-law (married to Mary), Christopher Brown, also a boatbuilder. See bottom left of P.9, and rest of that page.https://www.mdhs.org.au/pdfs/Ships%2 […]

Great photos as ever! I bought Don a cheapo turntable for our first Xmas together (12 years ago! where did that time go?) and having long decluttered our respective collections, had a blast collecting albums from charity shops, markets and of course ebay. We sent it off to the charity shop when we moved here, but it was loads of fun while we had it. I'm […]

It was a $49.99 turntable, so it was never going to sound amazing, but it was surprisingly good, when you consider all the crackles. MP3 is good enough for me, too. Oh yes, that album cover. I was about 13 or 14 when it was released. OH MY!

You didn't say that the music from the record sounded better, or more alive or more natural. I wonder about the record purists. MP3 is good enough for me. I can only remember scratchy old records, clicks, pops, cleaning dust from the needle. We were at an art exhibition last week, and I had so forgotten the album cover of the Rolling Stones Sticky Finge […]

Hi James Thank you ever so much for sharing your family history with such passion. This note of thanks is about 3 or so years late, which is when I first read about Robert Higgins. I didn’t know he was so close in my tree then but I loved the story. From time to time during my ancestry search, I come across your work and in doing so yesterday, a 1st cousin 3 […]